In what basically amounts to proof positive that a book is worth reading, The Hunger Games trilogy has cracked the top three on the American Library Association's list of the most frequently challenged books of 2011—which means they're among the books that parents and educators have most often complained about being inappropriate for America's delicate youth. The Hunger Games appeared by itself in the number five spot on the 2010 list, but now the entire trilogy has earned a number three ranking. Apparently it's grown more unpopular with grownups since the movie came along and boosted the popularity of the trilogy with kids. Figures. Here are the main charges leveled against the books: "anti-ethnic; anti-family; insensitivity; offensive language; occult/satanic; violence."

Sure, the books deal with some very adult themes, but maybe it's not the books we should really be worried about. According to Barbara Jones, director of the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom, many of the complaints that came in to the ALA about the The Hunger Games books were actually related to the movie version:

There was complaining about the choice of actors for the film. You had people saying someone was dark-skinned in the book, but not in the film, or dark-skinned in the film and not in the book. In general, a lot more people were aware of the books and that led to more kinds of complaints.

That is certainly a very diplomatic way of saying that a lot of parents and educators are too stupid to know the difference between a book and a movie. Fantastic. This country's future is looking brighter every second. Anyway, even if there are morons trying to ban books because they don't like the film adaptations of said books, Suzanne Collins can take comfort in the fact that she's got some very classic (and classy) company on this list of "objectionable" literature: The number seven spot belongs to Aldous Huxley's A Brave New World and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee rounds out the top ten.